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HRSA eNews September 1, 2016

The Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) has released a draft Health Center Program (HCP) Compliance Manual, which is available online for public comment through 11:59 p.m. on November 22, 2016. The draft HCP Compliance Manual

Outlines statutory and regulatory requirements for the Health Center Program

Provides guidance on how health centers demonstrate compliance with these requirements; and

The 2017 National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Students to Service Loan Repayment Program application cycle is now open. This program awards up to $120,000 to medical and dental students in their final year of school in return for a commitment to provide primary care services full-time for at least 3 years at an approved NHSC site in an underserved area. The application cycle closes on October 13, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. ET

National Suicide Prevention Week is September 5-11. Across HRSA programs, there is an ongoing effort to integrate primary and behavioral health care and services. For example, as recognized providers of primary health care services, HRSA-funded health centers are experiencing a greater demand for mental health services. In 2015, depression and anxiety disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, ranked fourth and seventh, respectively, among the top ten reasons that a patient visited a health center. Approximately 89% of health centers provide mental health treatment or counseling services on-site or through contracts with other providers and in 2015, there were more than 13 million mental health visits.

The consequences of bullying extend into adulthood and can be more severe than physical violence and other forms of child mistreatment, Acting HRSA Administrator Jim Macrae said in a recent C-SPAN broadcast.

Not only are bullied young people more likely to suffer low self-esteem, depression and loneliness, but entire classrooms, schools and communities can be affected -- and children ​​who bully others also are likely to experience emotional and mental health problems themselves, Macrae said.

More than 2,400 HIV care and treatment leaders, Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program recipients, stakeholders, and those on the front lines providing direct care to people living with HIV convened in Washington, DC August 23-26, for the 2016 National Ryan White Conference on HIV Care & Treatment. The theme for this year’s HRSA HIV/AIDS Bureau’s National Conference was “Forward Momentum: Accelerating Access. Optimizing Care. Transforming Public Health.”

Experiencing one of the fastest-growing HIV epidemics in the world -- with nearly 40,000 deaths to date -- the war-torn Ukraine is seeking to improve its disease surveillance and patient-tracking systems to better manage the epidemic.

At the beginning of 2015 — before the ceasefire in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of eastern Ukraine — there were 218,000 HIV-positive persons (ages 15 and over) living in the nation of 45 million people. But less than half (130,000) were registered at health care facilities, according to the HRSA-funded International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH).

Please join the Center for Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) Marketplace CEO Kevin Counihan along with CCIIO Consumer Support Group Director Jennifer Beeson and other CMS/CCIIO leadership for a forum on Monday, September 26, 2016 via remote live streaming.

This forum will promote best practices and share strategies for enhancing assister capacity to perform outreach, education, and enrollment activities for the 2017 Open Enrollment period for the individual market (OE 4) and beyond. Topics covered include navigator metric reporting, Plan Compare 2.0, and consumer engagement and outreach strategies for OE 4. Registration for the CCIIO Assister Forum is available here until Thursday, September 22nd, 12pm EST.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), qualified health plan issuers are required to include essential community providers (ECPs) in their network, where available. ECPs are defined as health care providers who serve predominantly low-income, medically-underserved individuals. HHS has compiled a draft list of available ECPs for play year (PY) 2018 based on petitions received this year, but it’s not too late for providers to get on the list. To be eligible for inclusion in the ECP list for PY 2018, providers must apply by October 7th, 2016 for the Essential Community Provider (ECP) designation. ECP categories include federally qualified health centers, black lung clinics, children’s hospitals, rural health clinics, Ryan White providers, and more.